There are currently several bills in the New Hampshire Legislature that seek to target and exclude our transgender friends and neighbors, particularly in sports. Senate Bill 375 and House Bill 1205 would ban trans girls from participating on school-sponsored girls sports teams. The New Hampshire Women’s Foundation strongly opposes these bills. 

Trans girls are girls. And trans girls, like all girls, deserve to be accepted and included in schools and have access to the many benefits of sports including teamwork, friendship, and belonging. New Hampshire girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health and LGBTQ girls have even higher rates of poor mental health than their heterosexual or cis-gender peers. At this moment in time, we need more support for girls, including trans girls, not efforts to socially alienate them. 

These proposed bans on trans girls’ participation in girls sports are inconsistent with the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association rules, as well as New Hampshire’s non-discrimination laws, and would open the door to violations of the federal Title IX law. National organizations like the National Women’s Law Center, the Women’s Sports Foundation, and Women Leaders in College Sports all support trans-inclusive policies. 

There are real issues we should be addressing in girls sports like a lack of adequate funding and resources, but that doesn’t seem to be a priority of the legislature. Student athletes are not asking us to ban their friends from playing sports with them. They, and we, say: Let trans girls play! 

Tanna Clews, of Portsmouth, is the CEO of the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation.

More: Why are there so many bills about gender identity in New Hampshire? Experts weigh in

BARTLETT — A New Hampshire State Trooper was injured in a single-car crash early Thursday morning on Route 302.

Sgt. Nathan Johnston, a 20-year veteran of the State Police, was traveling eastbound at approximately 3:20 a.m. when his cruiser veered off the road and struck a utility pole, causing utility wires to fall.

Johnston, who was on duty at the time, managed to call for assistance himself.

Responders from the Bartlett Fire Department, Bartlett Police Department, State Police, and utility companies arrived on the scene.

After ensuring that the downed power lines were no longer live, they were able to safely extract Johnston from the wreckage.

He was transported to Memorial Hospital in North Conway where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later released.

Traffic near the crash site is expected to face delays for several hours as repairs to the damaged utility pole are underway.

Authorities are currently investigating the cause of the accident.

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire jury awarded $38 million to the man who blew the lid off abuse allegations at the state’s youth detention center Friday, in a landmark case finding the state’s negligence allowed him to be beaten, raped and held in solitary confinement as a teen.

David Meehan went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Since then, 11 former state workers have been arrested and more than 1,100 other former residents of the Youth Development Center in Manchester have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse spanning six decades.

Meehan’s case was the first to go to trial, and the outcome could affect the criminal cases, the remaining lawsuits, and a separate settlement fund the state created as an alternative to litigation.

Over the course of the four-week trial, the state argued it was not liable for the conduct of “rogue” employees and that Meehan waited too long to sue. The defense also tried to undermine his credibility and said his case relied on “conjecture and speculation with a lot of inuendo mixed in.”

“Conspiracy theories are not a substitute for actual evidence,” attorney Martha Gaythwaite said in her closing statement Thursday.

Meehan’s attorneys accused the state of encouraging a culture of abuse marked by pervasive brutality, corruption and a code of silence.

“They still don’t get it,” David Vicinanzo said in his closing statement. “They don’t understand the power they had, they don’t understand how they abused their power and they don’t care.”

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